Maria’s Guides

Information from Software Update.

QuickTime 7.3.1 addresses security issues. This update is recommended for all QuickTime 7 users.

For detailed information on this update, visit: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61798

It’s a bit involved, but doable.

Yesterday, I explained how you can “unlearn” a word that you mistakenly added to Mac OS X’s user dictionary. Of course, applications other than those developed by Apple probably don’t use Apple’s dictionary.

Microsoft Word is a good example. It stores the words you add to it in a Custom dictionary file. To remove a word you added by mistake, you have to manually edit this dictionary. Here’s how you can do this in Word 2004 for Mac OS; the technique is similar in Word 2003 for Windows.

1. In Word, choose Microsoft Word > Preferences. (Note that a document window must be open to choose this command.)
2. In the Preferences dialog that appears, choose Spelling and Grammar.
   
3. Click the Dictionaries button.
4. In the Custom Dictionaries dialog that appears, select the name of the dictionary you want to edit.
   
5. Click the Edit button.
6. A dialog like the one shown next appears. Click OK.
   
7. A Word window named Custom Dictionary opens. It contains all the words in your dictionary, in alphabetical order. Make changes as desired in this file, adding or removing words as you see fit.
   
8. Choose File > Save to save the modified file.
9. If a dialog like the one shown next appears, click Yes.
   
10. Click the Custom Dictionary’s close button to dismiss it.
11. If you had Check spelling as you type turned on before you started this process, go back into the Spelling and Grammar preferences and turn it back on.

From that point forward, Word will recognize only the words in its main dictionary and the custom dictionary as you edited it.

Page References

Microsoft Word 2004 for Mac OS X: Visual QuickStart Guide offers additional information related to this topic:

• Enabling Automatic Spelling Checking, page 143
• Checking Spelling as You Type, page 144
• Setting Spelling and Grammar Preferences, pages 380-382

Tips for using Mac OS X’s spelling checker.

One of the great things about Mac OS X is its built-in spelling checker. It makes it a lot tougher to spell a word incorrectly.

With Check Spelling While Typing enabled, a dotted red underline appears under each word Mac OS X doesn’t recognize. When faced with this, you have several options:

• Manually type in a new spelling for the word.
• Use the contextual menu to choose a different word. (I didn’t realize there were so many options for the spelling of my last name!)
• Use the contextual menu to choose Ignore Spelling to remove the red underline.
• Use the contextual menu to choose Learn Spelling to add the word’s current spelling to the Mac OS X user dictionary. This is the option I recommend for a word that’s correctly spelled that you use often.

If you use the Ignore Spelling option, the word’s spelling is ignored in that document only. If you choose Learn Spelling, the word is ignored in all documents. And since Mac OS X’s spelling check feature works in all Apple applications, the word is ignored everywhere that Mac OS X might flag it as a possible error.

So what happens if you accidentally “learn” the incorrect spelling of a word? Simple. Tell Mac OS X to unlearn it.

Right-click (or Control-click) on the word you added to the dictionary in error. Then choose Unlearn Spelling from the contextual menu that appears. The word is immediately flagged as a possible problem again.

And remember, no spelling checker will flag a misspelled word if that spelling spells another word it knows.

Page References

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: Visual QuickStart Guide includes more information about related topics:

• Checking Spelling & Grammar, pages 230-233
• Using Contextual menus, page 21

A very cool screen saver for folks with a lot of photos stored on their Macs.

One of the very cool and almost hidden features of Mac OS X 10.5’s improved screen saver is the photo mosaic screen saver module. This screen saver tells your computer to use all of the photos stored on it to create mosaic images of photos stored in a specific folder or an iPhoto event or album.

If that description doesn’t really help you visualize what this screen saver is doing, this post includes a video that not only shows you how to set it up, but it shows you the screen saver in action.

Keep in mind that the mosaic screen saver works best if you have a lot of photos in your iPhoto file.

Setting It Up

Here are the step-by-step instructions for setting up this screen saver on your Mac. These instructions are repeated in the video, but you might want to read through them quickly to get an idea of what to expect.

1. Choose Apple > System Preferences.
2. In the System Preferences window that appears, click the Desktop & Screen Saver Icon.
3. In the Desktop & Screen Saver preferences pane, click the Screen Saver button.
4. In the Screen Savers list on the left side of the window, scroll down to the Pictures list and select one of the picture folders, iPhoto events, or iPhoto albums in the list. This will be the folder full of images that are created with the mosaic tiles.
5. Under the Preview area, click the Mosaic Display Style button.
   
6. Click the Options button and use the dialog sheet that appears to set options, including whether slides should be presented in a random order, how many rows of mosaic tiles should make up the image, and the speed at which the mosaic image should be built. Click OK to save your settings.
7. Set screen saver Start options as desired, using the slider in the main Screen Saver window.
8. To see what your screen saver will look like on a full screen, click Test. (You can press Esc when you’re finished previewing.
9. Click the Desktop & Screen Saver preferences window to save your settings.

Seeing It In Action

Okay, here’s my home movie of the setup process, as well as a full-screen test with a number of images. To keep the video small, I downsized my computer display’s resolution. You’ll need QuickTime installed on your computer to see this video.

Two quick notes about this video:

• To make the file size smaller, I’ve set the screen rate a bit low for this. As a result, the screen saver’s transition appear a bit jerky. When you use the screen saver, you’ll see that the transitions are actually quite smooth.
• This is a 17 MB file. The quickTime controller may not appear immediately after you click, especially if you have a slow connection to the Internet.

[Note: I removed the full-size video I'd linked to here in addition to showing the movie above. It was choking at least one offline RSS reader with its 72+ MB size.]

Page References

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: Visual QuickStart Guide includes more information about related topics:

• Screen Saver, pages 166-169
• Using System Preferences Panes, pages 547-549
• Preview, pages 304-308

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In case you were wondering…

Sherlock is not supported in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. So if you had the idea that you’d copy Sherlock to a computer running Leopard, forget it.

You can learn more here: Sherlock is Not Supported.

A Technorati technicality.

To attach your blog to your Technorati account, you need to prove it’s yours by claiming it. That’s what this link to my Technorati Profile does for me.